Best Friend
by Prince-Vermin
Summary: There's a new student in Neku's class. Owari Wa Hajimari...


I'd never intended to take them off. When I got my headphones, I was simply pleased with myself for having received something CAT-designed and limited edition. For it to be an object of value that I could also use on an everyday basis was something past what I'd hoped for. I loved music. Drowning myself in my headphones drowned out the sounds of the people around me. People that were selfish. People that were cruel. People that I had no interest in.

Every day, I walked those streets that were so empty even though they were so crowded. The streets spoke in hushed tones, and those thriving masses of people did not exist to me. I wasn't interested in anything but where I was going. They were in my way. They made it so I couldn't see where I was going, and I didn't want to deal with it. I hated them. I hated them all.

I knew people could change, but back then, I knew one and only truth. I didn't get people.

I never had, and I never would.

-

The boy called Yoshiya Kiryu had made my life a living hell in the past. I wasn't impressed with the school's decision to transfer him into _my class_ when he decided to come back to school. I wasn't surprised when he decided to sit beside me. Mostly, I wanted to keep to myself, to do my schoolwork and to let my past teach me that I needed to focus.

Then again, the past was the past. As it stood, with Kiryu sitting beside me, focusing was starting to get harder and harder. My short attention span when it came to my classes wasn't helped by the way he stared out the window intently, almost like he saw something no one else did and just relished the possibility that someone would ask him just what it was he was watching. I was always easily distracted, by the sounds of my other classmates breathing or whispering or passing notes that I could barely make out from where I was sitting in the back.

I was a bit relieved by the fact that it wasn't just me. The girl that sat in front of me glanced back, over her shoulder, constantly. She would hiss at Kiryu to get his attention, and the two would continue to distract me with talk of fashion. The boy in front of Kiryu spoke with him about manga. The other boy, who sat to my right, would talk through me to Kiryu, about music and art. These conversations were the hardest to ignore, not because of where the voices came from, but because they caught my interest.

I heard through the grapevine that Kiryu had been homeschooled most of his life, but I knew better. The playful smirk Kiryu delivered to the person who dared to bring up that concept should have taught anyone better, but maybe my people-watching habits were finally giving me what-for. Kiryu had the same habit, but unlike me, he exercised them openly, making no secret of it when he watched a guy slip a note into someone's locker, or watched a girl wipe off stray traces of lipstick as she exited the restroom. Worse, Kiryu would sometimes call people out on this, asking girls both older, younger, and in the same grade as us awkward questions. He seemed unaffected by the awkwardness I and many boys our age felt when it came to talking to girls.

No matter what we'd been through in the past, and how much time we'd spent together, we didn't know each other. Not really. It was masks over masks with both of us, and no matter what we'd been through before the brilliant school system moved him into our class, no matter what had occurred in the class, we really didn't know a damn thing about each other.

And because I was such a masochist, I ended up obsessed with every word that left his lips when he talked to my classmates about clothes and games and anime and books…and music. I learned that his viewpoints were closer to my own than I could ever have imagined, that maybe, if _we_ would ever have these in-depth conversations that he had with my classmates while I was pretending to be working on my math, he would get me.

Maybe, just maybe, we could be friends after all.

-

Sometimes I swore he did it just to make people ask questions. The way he would sigh softly as he stared out the window, or giggle quietly while reading something… They were the kinds of noises people made as a gentle hint, pressing somebody to ask what was on their mind without actually asking for their attention. I'd learned to drown out these small sounds, the turning pages in the books he was reading or the tapping of his fingernail against the desk when he was bored. It was like my mind was an encyclopedia, but one that was a work in progress. Every new sound was catalogued and stored away, so that I would never again me distracted by it. The same could not be said for my classmates, immature and obnoxious and distracting all by themselves. In this case alone, however, I could not blame them.

It was a few strained days after the transfer before I finally cracked and started up a conversation with him. He'd tried, asking me questions that I could mostly shrug off with a grunt or an "I don't know," but I refused to let him use his siren song on me. I would resist the temptation of talking to him. I would not let the ensemble darkhorse of our middle school bewitch me like he had everyone else in our class. When he asked questions or made comments that actually fascinated me, I ignored him entirely.

The conversation I dared to instigate, however, was triggered by a sound I hadn't yet catalogued into my encyclopedia of "Noises Yoshiya Kiryu Makes To Distract Me From More Important Things In My Life."

The scratching of his pen against paper didn't match up with the sounds of writing. That could only mean that he was drawing. Despite myself, I let my gaze stray over to his desk, and my daring curiosity paid off immediately. He wasn't like me. He didn't draw with his arm curled protectively over the piece he was working on, his free hand cupped around the paper so that no prying eyes could catch a glimpse. There were a lot of people in my class that were into manga or realistic drawings, and every one of them had this habit. I sketched sometimes, too, but I didn't have enough arms to cover my work. I couldn't draw in public.

But Kiryu? He didn't try to hide a damn thing. His free hand was serving as a prop for his chin, and his lashes were lowered lazily, watching his pen move across the paper as though he wasn't even controlling it. He was pressing hard, in decisive lines. If he messed up, his work would have been screwed up beyond repair. He didn't seem to know this problem existed. As I looked closer, I realized that it didn't seem to be a possibility, either. He wasn't sketching, wasn't really drawing at all. It was like his mind was a computer and his hand was a printer, perfectly marking down his mental image while Kiryu himself made no real effort.

"What are you drawing?" I whispered, gripping the bottom of my chair with my hands. I lifted it with my body and moved closer to him on my toes, refusing to scoot my chair and draw attention to us both. At first, I thought he was going to give me a taste of my own medicine and ignore me. It was a few long seconds, seconds in which he didn't so much as look at me, before he finally spoke.

"No idea."

He said it so dreamily that it was hard to decide whether it was true or not. I scowled and moved closer until I was actively peering over his shoulder. The style was surreal, animals drawn in a graffiti style that made them look simultaneously cool and menacing. Pokemon meets Petshop of Horrors. I could make out bats, wolves, birds, and foxes among his doodles, and then some. They were drawn to such perfect detail that it was hard to imagine him drawing these from the forefront of his mind without having drawn them before.

"These are really good," I muttered, more to myself than him. Of course, since it was a compliment, he made sure to comment on it with a smirk and a "Thanks," but he granted me the serenity of nothing more than that. He didn't mind my watching, and continued drawing, finishing the third tail of a kitsune before moving on. After a few seconds, he began work on a humanoid figure, and only then did he cover it with his hand.

"Who is that?" I prodded.

"No idea. Do you draw, Neku?"

I cringed internally, hating him in that moment for more reasons than one. He _knew_ I liked to draw, but more importantly, why did he insist on using everyone's first names? Yes, we knew each other outside of school, and yeah, I'd used to call him by his first name. But there was a time and place for everything, and him referring to me by my first name when we were _not_ friends?

That was just creepy.

"Yeah. Not like this, though."

"Similar, from what I've seen," he corrected, with another little smirk. I bristled at that. Why did he ask me questions if he was just going to correct the answer I gave him? And what the hell? Wouldn't I have known the right answer to that question better than him, anyway? I didn't get a chance to snipe at him. He continued unbidden. "You're into graffiti?"

It was another rhetorical question, I knew. I just nodded and watched him draw. I considered myself lucky for being in the back of the class, with a teacher who couldn't see her hand in front of her face, let alone the kids across the room. Kiryu continued to draw for a good few minutes in silence, before whipping around to tug the earbud from its snug place.

"Hey!" I complained, maybe a little too loud.

"Do you like CAT?"

I simply gave him a look, not allowing this question to be answered. I knew from that glint in his eyes that he had a plan for me, and any answer I gave would have doomed me. I didn't have to answer, the school's bell cutting me off. That was not a good thing. Kiryu's grin widened, and he collected his things and got up.

"Tomorrow's Sunday. Meet me in Udagawa around midday, okay? We'll do lunch." He pressed a finger to his lips, thinking. Then: "And I want to show you something."

I knew that was the real reason for it, but despite my inhibitions and the fact that Udagawa was the LAST place I wanted to be with this particular teenager, I nodded.

"Sure. But first, tell me." My tone was firm, but he just looked at me with playful confusion in his eyes. How he managed that expression baffled me.

"Tell you what, Neku?"

"Who were you drawing?"

His smirk morphed into something different, something rare. It was a cross between mischief and mystery that painted itself over his smile in that moment.

"Crowd control," he said cryptically, and turned on his heel to leave the classroom. I called for him to wait. I looked down to quickly scramble for my things and jam my bud back into my ear, but when I looked up again, he was already gone.

-

I never liked doing anything without music. Whenever I walked the streets, I always had one earbud firmly lodged in my ear canal. It was getting to the point where I was in pain because of how deep it was wedged, but it was a pain I was willing to endure. Earbuds made it easy to tune people out, but still be able to listen to the goings-on around you. Lately, I'd been more interested in people than I'd ever been. I couldn't afford to have both buds in.

As I lingered around Stride and watched some of the gamers chatter, I kept an eye out for my classmate. When I saw him pass me and head towards Udagawa, I followed him. I'm not sure why I did this. Maybe I was just a little panicky about Udagawa and all that had ever happened there. It was daytime, so that helped, but when it came to Udagawa I was always a bit worried about getting shot.

Call me paranoid.

I almost collided with Kiryu as I turned a corner, the bastard having stopped and turned to look at me as I was following him. He giggled.

"Careful. You okay?"

"Yeah, fine," I grumbled. Humiliated, but fine. Is that what you wanted to hear instead?

But he didn't seem to mind the fact that I'd scuffed his shoe and probably bruised his ribs. He smiled at me and tilted his head towards the alleyway, pressing me on without speaking. My expression was probably stony as I passed him to walk towards the alley's end. I'd never been this deep into Udagawa. Never wanted to be.

But there was light coming from the alley's end. Voices, too. Then I saw it. There was a riot of color, a wave of music and voices and laughter. The alley was a street that opened up at the ends, apartments full of excited people, but they didn't matter to me. I'd never seen this mural before, this amazing work of graffiti, all creepy animals and cryptic words and a black cat pointing down at me like it was picking me out a crowd.

Kiryu approached me silently while I was staring, awestruck, at the masterpiece. He didn't say anything, but I managed to find my own tongue what felt like hours later.

"This is…"

"CAT's work," Kiryu interrupted, brushing a lock of hair from his eyes. "Beautiful thing, isn't it?"

"It's incredible!" I gasped, raising a hand to touch it. My fingers brushed the cool wall, and for some reason, I felt as though I could have passed right through, into a world that was not mine. Behind me, Kiryu was looking around, his expression having softened into something close to confusion. I turned to grin at him. "This is so cool."

He looked my way and smiled. "Isn't it?" He looked up at the mural. "It hasn't been up very long. CAT did it very recently. Can't help but wonder why he chose here. It's so far away from his usual tagging victims."

I shook my head, only half-listening to him.

"I'm glad he did this."

"This place has better lighting now than it did when he last worked here," Kiryu commented, a fondness in his voice that I'd never heard there before. "His work really speaks to you while somehow managing to convey a different message to the masses. He's a talented person."

"CAT," I whispered, still dumbfounded. "Damn."

Kiryu sighed and raised a delicate palm.

"Anyway, this is what I had wanted to show you."

"I'm glad you did!" I rushed out, turning to face him with a grin. He laughed.

"I'm happy you're happy, Neku."

"How did you know this was here?"

Kiryu's smile faded a little, and he tilted his head as though he were confused.

"I know Shibuya's streets better than anyone. It's easy for me to spot a change. CAT's work is like picking out a white feather from against a black sheet."

I nodded, understanding him without really understanding him. He looked distracted again.

"Lunch?" he offered, his smile dreamy now.

"What's the rush?"

"Oh." He laughed, waving me off and moving past me down the alleyway. I followed him reluctantly, casting the mural a last glance. He continued in an off-handed tone. "There's a game on today."

He'd never struck me as the type of person who was into sports.

-

After the day we met up in Udagawa, I became a lot closer to Yoshiya Kiryu. I still didn't feel comfortable calling him by a nickname, but I had crossed that first-name-basis threshold. He, on the other hand, had moved on to calling me "Neku-kun," and while I didn't really mind it, it was still a little unusual. Maybe it was just my social retardation at work.

We were into the same kinds of things, for the most part. While I didn't share his passion for fashion and he didn't look at girls like they were aliens like I did, our viewpoints and interests were similar. Being around him still bothered me, but it wasn't as bad as it used to be. We'd both matured a little since our last encounter, when we were both kids, pushing at each other until the other was in tears.

Granted, I never pushed Yoshiya to tears. That was usually him pushing me a little too far. But not anymore.

Yoshiya, too, was a people-watcher, though he was more open about it. Like me, he was baffled by the things other people did and said, the way they moved, the tone of their voice and their eyes moving to look at other things while they held their conversations. Unlike me, however, Yoshiya seemed content with the reality that we would never get the people we watched.

"But they'll never get us, either," Yoshiya pointed out after school one day, crossing his arms and staring out the window at two teenagers running by. The thought of that brought me a little comfort, and I relaxed a bit.

"Can you help me with this?" I muttered at him, crossing out an equation I'd royally screwed up for the fourth time. Yoshiya snickered.

"No, Neku-kun. You'll never learn if you don't do it yourself."

"I'll never do it myself if I never learn how to do it _right_," I grumbled, clicking the pen and putting it away. Yoshiya began to hum quietly, staring out at the city. I followed his gaze.

"I'm starved. Let's go out for burgers."

"Ohh, again?" Yoshiya turned to pout at me, an expression that made me cringe away while a passing group of older girls aww'd at him. "Neku-kun," he said reproachfully, drawing out the first half of my name, "can't we go get something else for once?"

"Yeah, yeah, fries are bad for your complexion or something. Whatever you want, Yoshiya."

"Goody," he said, clapping his hands together and dropping the act. "Let's go to Dogenzaka."  
"Why?"

"Ramen," Yoshiya responded, and such a simple answer really seemed nice at that moment. Ramen sounded good.

-

He didn't like burgers and fries, so I don't know why I was even a tiny bit surprised when he got shio ramen. Then again, I wasn't one to talk. Shoyu was plain as anything, but it was always my first choice. I ate quickly, but Yoshiya didn't. As always, he seemed incredibly bored with his surroundings, and was staring out with window while working a noodle around the bowl.

"Don't like it?" I asked awkwardly, trying to make conversation.

"Hm?" Yoshiya glanced at me. "I don't know what you mean. Shio is my favourite."

"I know, it's just…you're not eating it."

"I suppose I'm just distracted," he replied sullenly, dropping his chopsticks and lacing his fingers together. He buried his mouth against his knuckles and looked outside again.

"More than usual. Everything okay?"

He didn't respond. He kept his eyes on the window, and I followed his gaze. Considering the crowd outside, he could have been watching anyone or anything. A few more moments of silence passed. I kept eating, and he did not.

"How was the game?" I asked finally, not really wanting to hear the answer. At that point, the silence from him was too loud. I was willing to endure a conversation I didn't want to hear, if only to have him come back to reality.

He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. His eyes had widened.

"That's not right," he whispered. I knew it wasn't aimed at me.

"Hey..." I pressed him, uneasy, but he didn't answer me. His cell phone rang and he picked up as though he'd expected the call.

"Yeah? Oh, hi. …Yes, I saw."

I fell silent, myself, and played around with the tiny remnants of noodles in my bowl. He continued talking on his phone.

"I can't come over, I'm with a friend. …Can't we do it later?" There was a pressured sort of plead and a strain on his voice that I'd never heard from him before. I no longer felt neglected. Whatever was going on with him was not my fault. That made me feel better, albeit now more concerned than I had been. He was watching me, but looked away, his expression dark and solemn as he lowered his tone. "Okay. Yeah, I'm on my way. I'll be there."

When he left, it was after giving me the first apology I'd ever heard from him. I sat there and stared at the cold bowl of ramen, still full, that he'd left behind him. I wasn't angry he'd left. In a way, I was morbidly pleased with myself. I'd never felt rejected by a friend before, and never been worried about one.

Despite the stab of loneliness in my gut when he left, I felt lucky to have a reason to feel that way. I drained my bowl and left with a smile.

-

He wasn't in school the next day. The lack of distractions made it impossible to focus.

-

It had been months since Yoshiya showed me the mural in Udagawa. Since then, we'd met there every day after school, provided we'd both been in school on that day. The day after he'd been absent from school, he came into class with a pale face. He sat down beside me and began to copy the work from the board into his book, without so much as a greeting. I left him alone for a few minutes. When I finally spoke up, it was in a hushed tone.

"What happened? You look like sh-"

"Bad day yesterday, is all. I'm not feeling well."

"Did something happen?"

I must have looked uncharacteristically concerned, or something, because he looked up from his notes to stare at me.

"No, Neku-kun," he said, smiling faintly. "I'll be okay. Just some chatter on the lines."

I didn't have to ask. He passed me a newspaper clipping that featured a girl who looked familiar. It took me a moment, but...

"Hey, this is-"

"Kurami Takahashi."

She had the face of your typical Shibuya trend tramp. That by itself made her easy to recognize. It was strange, looking at her face in the newspaper. It wasn't the first time I'd seen her in the paper, but never like this.

"She could have been something great," Yoshiya sighed. I didn't fully agree with the statement, but I'd never been one to speak ill of the dead. Most of the time. Yoshiya seemed to want to get off the subject before we could really get on it. "I was in a rush this morning. Forgot my mp3 player."

That would have been the least of his concerns right now. I knew him well enough to know that much. Still, he stared down at his notebook with an adopted expression that was evilly pitiful. With a sigh, I passed him my other earbud, and we listened together, drowning ourselves in a world apart from the one who had just lost another morbid teenage brat.

-

For the weeks that followed, Yoshiya was back to his normal insufferable self. We had fun, talking, going out to eat, introducing each other to the newest goings-on in our lives…or lack thereof. In my case, it was all the latest crazes in art and music. In his case, the latest crazes in…well, everything. It was Thursday night when he came over to help me work on a project, CAT-centric. My mother was out, something I was grateful for. I didn't want to be distracted by anything but the project. Yoshiya was bad enough on his own.

"How much more do you have to do?" he asked, peering over the powerpoint display and handing me a coffee. I took it and grinned.

"The good stuff, huh? Thanks for that."

"You look like you're almost finished."

"W-well…yeah." I scrolled through the pictures and comments, feeling a little more proud of myself, then. Yoshiya continued to look over it, and I passed him the mouse so he could better take control. I turned my attention to the coffee he'd handed me. As he examined each slide in silence, I began to feel uneasy again.

"Uh…"

"Neku-kun."

"Yeah?"

"This is flawless." He turned towards me and flashed a smile before looking at the last few slides. I flushed; I worshipped the ground CAT walked on. Yoshiya knew him better than anyone. If he said it was flawless, then…

"You'll tell me, right? I mean, if anything's wrong. Or if there's anything I can add to it. Or if-"

"Hush, Neku-kun. You did wonderfully." Yoshiya clicked to save and close the presentation and sat down in my chair, heaving a light sigh. He spun, the chair's swivel controlled by the tip of his toes, and sipped at his hot coffee. I didn't dare try it yet.

"It's due tomorrow," I said, annoyed at the relief evident in my voice.

"Mm-hm. And when did you start?"

"…Heh."

I knew he knew I had done it last minute. I didn't answer him. If it was flawless, there was no problem with how long it had taken me. Only how hard I had worked on it, and we both knew I'd worked my ass off.

"I really need this grade," I said quietly. "I've been so damn lazy with my work lately."

"You're too intelligent for the school's curriculum," Yoshiya said, his tone snotty. "I can't blame you for not paying attention to all that."

It was a load of crap. He had good grades, and he was cocky enough to know he was probably smarter than me. Still, I knew better than to reject the compliment. From him, it was all I'd get.

I'd take it.

-

The next day was Friday, and Yoshiya wasn't in school. It bothered me to have to do the presentation without him there. My social ineptitude almost killed me, but I managed to deliver all my points, all my facts…everything. Those who knew about CAT were staring at me like I was the single most amazing thing in the world, and the idiots who didn't were fascinated despite themselves. I could see it.

I went straight home after class, and my mother was waiting with a reward that had me speechless for an hour. That hour I spent running my hands over the gift, testing it, playing with it, making sure it was solid and real and not going to slip through my fingers.  
When the hour was over, I grasped for my cell and called Yoshiya. The phone rang for a bizarrely long time before he finally picked up. He didn't say anything right away, but when he spoke, it was my name. Quiet. Unhappy.

"Neku-kun."

"…Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I feel guilty. I didn't mean to miss your presentation, but-"

"Don't worry about it," I laughed. "Trust me, I know better than anyone how precious _your_ time is."

He laughed, and I felt better. Yoshiya Kiryu being depressed was a rare thing that never ended well.

"Look, I talked to the teacher after class, and…I saved my grade." I felt like crying. "My mother…she…"

"Neku, is this a terribly long story?" His voice was cool and playful. "Because the way your voice is, it sounds like a script for an unfinished chick flick."

"Oh, shut up! Look, you've gotta see what my mother gave me, okay? It's why she was gone yesterday. She knew I would save my grade, and my reward…" I trailed off. I didn't want to tell him. I wanted to show him. "Can you come over?"

"Now? No. I have a lot to get done, Neku-kun. I missed school today, after all." The mischief in his voice masked whatever it was that was wrong. I shrugged and nodded.

"Will you be in school tomorrow?"

"I will. I have errands to run afterwards, but you can show me-"

"When we meet up at the mural. Okay?" My excitement must have been evident in my voice, because he giggled.

"Right. See you, Neku-kun."

"Yeah!"

-

Yoshiya made up for the wasted time of the day before by staring outside extra hard when he came into school. My prize was in my backpack, and I hadn't brought my earbuds with me. I squirmed through the entire school day, and the time that Yoshiya spent not looking out of the window, he spent teasing me about how fidgety I was.

"Do you need the restroom, Neku-kun?" he whispered, and I could only let out a half-whine, half-grunt at his snides. When class was finally over, I went straight to the mural, even though reminded me he had business to attend to before he could meet me there.

More than anything, I wanted to show Yoshiya the present my mother had given me. I owed him big time for the fact I even had them, so my thank you was going to come from my letting him use them before I did. I waited in a squirmy silence for Yoshiya to meet me. Every moment felt like hours, so it was no wonder that I was shocked when the sun had begun to set. Shocked when it really had been hours, and he'd never shown up.

It was the first time I'd ever been furious with him. Angry and hurt, I left the mural and went home alone.

The next day, I heard about the accident.

-

At first, I laughed, unable to believe it was true. Then, I went numb, and to keep myself from falling into hysterics, I put on my headphones. My mother had found them specifically as a reward for my project bringing my grade up. What better a prize for a perfect presentation about CAT than headphones, limited-edition and designed by the man himself?

The next few weeks ago school, and the years that followed, I wore them always. I didn't want to deal with anyone. With the distractions. With the opinions. I didn't want to make friends. I didn't want to open up. I didn't want anything but what was now lost to me, and so I let myself want the next song on my tracklist to come a little faster, a mark of the passing of time.

-

(J)

-

I'd never approved of the Composer's ways. His Game was not run smoothly, and as the years passed, I could see His work getting lazy. His Reapers were breaking rules. The Players weren't getting very far. I saw Players that had no potential at all, something I disapproved of greatly. Over the years, I'd been refining the Composer's rules in my mind, setting new guidelines and limitations.

The last straw was a six-year-old girl made into a Player. That wasn't laziness. That was cruelty, to her parents and to her friends, and most importantly, to her. She didn't complete the first mission. Her age restricted her. No one would form a Pact with the young child, and the Noise Erased her within the first twenty minutes of her introduction to the Game.

My life had gained some meaning when I forged a friendship with Neku Sakuraba, but I would always be alienated – not by my peers, but by myself. I was depressed on the day of Neku's presentation, and though I regretted missing it, I didn't regret what I did that day. Under the Composer's old and lazy nose, I spoke with His Reapers, and asked Sanae Hanekoma the questions he'd been denying me the answers to since I was the little girl's age. He knew, at that point, what my plan was, and he knew he couldn't stop me. All the more reason to give me the information I so desperately needed before I did what I did.

Neku was the first friend I'd ever had. His Soul was bright and he shared my ideals, my beliefs, my interests. I wouldn't have known how to say good-bye, to explain where I was going or why I was leaving. So…I didn't. He had the potential to move on, and so I assumed he would. On my way to the mural, I looked up the street and into the eyes of a driver coming my way. I knew his face, and I stepped in front of the car.

I don't remember the pain of it. Of dying. I just remember waking up by the mural with the man whose car had killed me, the man who had been killed by the impact. Megumi Kitaniji was the type of man who would forever be ashamed of taking the life of an _innocent_ little boy like myself, and when Sanae pulled the strings to get us into the Game, it took no time at all to find the Composer and dispose of him.

I replaced the Composer. Megumi served as my Conductor. And for the next two and a half years, my Game ran smoothly. I selected only the brightest Souls, with the most potential, for my Players. Most of the Reapers that had worked under the old Composer were either disposed of or retired. Some of them stayed on as my own Reapers, and these were the ones I was the most proud of.

In my time as the Composer, I broke only one of the Higher-Ups' rules. I went into the mind of the boy whose life I'd been so involved in before my death, and I Erased the details. I took back my name, my words of wisdom, the memories that I'd shared with him and the pictures I'd drawn for him. He forgot Yoshiya Kiryu had ever been his friend, but he didn't forget his friend.

I ran the Game as I saw fit, and Shibuya thrived and flourished, not missing the absence of just one teenage boy.

And the ghost he left behind.


End file.
